Behavior of catalysts with rhodium in simultaneous hydrodesulfurization and hydrogenation reactions

✍ Scribed by Sonia A. Giraldo; María H. Pinzón; Aristóbulo Centeno

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 159 KB
• Volume: 133-135
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0920-5861
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cattod.2007.12.021

✦ Synopsis

The behavior of catalysts containing rhodium was evaluated in hydrotreating (HDT) reactions at 583 K and 5 MPa. The influence of the temperature and the nature of the activating agent were analyzed for the monometallic Rh/g-Al 2 O 3 catalyst in simultaneous hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT) and hydrogenation (HYD) of naphthalene (NT). H 2 , H 2 S, N 2 and H 2 S (15 vol.%)/H 2 , H 2 S (85 vol.%)/H 2 mixtures were used as activating agents. Bimetallic RhMo/g-Al 2 O 3 catalysts with different Rh/Mo ratios were also tested in the same reactions. Some of the catalysts were characterized by XPS. The results show that for the Rh monometallic catalyst, the H 2 S present in the activating mixture leads to an increase in the selectivity to HDS. Synergy in both HDS and HYD reactions was detected for the bimetallic catalysts, and it presents a slight increase with the Rh/(Rh + Mo) atomic ratio. These results lead to speculate about the possible role of Rh in bimetallic catalysts.